I figured that one minor benefit of a sell-out is that everybody will have their tickets well in advance, with no need for a will call. So will they even have a will call this year? Seems like a lot of work to have a will call just to save sending tickets outside the USA.

I figured that one minor benefit of a sell-out is that everybody will have their tickets well in advance, with no need for a will call. So will they even have a will call this year? Seems like a lot of work to have a will call just to save sending tickets outside the USA.

Nope, official policy is to hold all tickets at will-call for foreign burners. The postal system is other countries may not give the same results as the USA system. (I like that I will absolutely have a ticket when I get to the gate)

I picked my ticket up from will-call 3 years straight without any issue. (Last year I had to get it mailed to a friend in the US, since I was going to be on the playa prior to will-call being open, and we were recovering from a mail strike in Canada. I stressed until the tickets were in her hand.)

Love Rice

Roach: "I feel like in this day and age, every girl should know how to build a flamethrower."

I figured that one minor benefit of a sell-out is that everybody will have their tickets well in advance, with no need for a will call. So will they even have a will call this year? Seems like a lot of work to have a will call just to save sending tickets outside the USA.

Well, one can imagine using the will call approach in the days when a will call was a necessary evil because some people didn't buy their tickets until August. But if everybody is going to have bought long before then, it certainly seems to make sense to try to eliminate it. Folks who work gate have said that they think the will call slows down the gate because of the cross traffic and confusion about where to go, no matter how well signed it is.

Yes, there will still be a ticket-problems station and post to charge stupid taxes, but that will be for a tiny fraction of burners and nobody would go to it by choice. If I still lived outside the USA, I would rather pay the $12 for international registered mail than go to will call myself. For Canada, which I bet is the bulk of non-US tickets, one could save some money by using a person or company who receives a shipment of all the tix (since they now will go all at once) and mails them domestically.

@stretch80 - there will likely be an updated Survival Guide published next summer. And will call will still be an option for domestic and Canadian orders.

@Bradtem - there will definitely still be a will call window at the gate. Ticket delivery/shipping options have not changed (in the US it's $12 for shipping or will call, in Canada it's $29 for shipping or $12 for will call, everywhere else outside the US it's $12 will call only). Personally I prefer ticket in hand but believe it or not, will call is a pretty popular choice among people who don't wait until the last minute.

bradtem wrote:Well, one can imagine using the will call approach in the days when a will call was a necessary evil because some people didn't buy their tickets until August. But if everybody is going to have bought long before then, it certainly seems to make sense to try to eliminate it. Folks who work gate have said that they think the will call slows down the gate because of the cross traffic and confusion about where to go, no matter how well signed it is.

Yes, there will still be a ticket-problems station and post to charge stupid taxes, but that will be for a tiny fraction of burners and nobody would go to it by choice. If I still lived outside the USA, I would rather pay the $12 for international registered mail than go to will call myself. For Canada, which I bet is the bulk of non-US tickets, one could save some money by using a person or company who receives a shipment of all the tix (since they now will go all at once) and mails them domestically.

The shipping cost to Canada was uh, $15-25ish, I think.

The participants in line do have trouble following simple directions, signs are wayy to complex for some... Unfortunately, Will-Call is a necessary evil. For example: Staff-priced tickets are held at will-call, there is no way to purchase those online.

I would not want to be the person responsible for shipping tickets out in Canada... (I see that going baaadd fast)

This year's burn is certainly going to be interesting. Here is hoping we all get the tickets we want!!

Rice

Love Rice

Roach: "I feel like in this day and age, every girl should know how to build a flamethrower."

trilobyte wrote:@stretch80 - there will likely be an updated Survival Guide published next summer. And will call will still be an option for domestic and Canadian orders.

@Bradtem - there will definitely still be a will call window at the gate. Ticket delivery/shipping options have not changed (in the US it's $12 for shipping or will call, in Canada it's $29 for shipping or $12 for will call, everywhere else outside the US it's $12 will call only). Personally I prefer ticket in hand but believe it or not, will call is a pretty popular choice among people who don't wait until the last minute.

The survival guide for the 2011 burn showed up in my mailbox a week after I got home (around August 16th), so that was kinda a waste. I always download the PDF version when it is released.

I use will-call, since that is the only way I can get my ticket (its complicated). Will Call not going away. I like the fact that I cannot lose my ticket, that I just show up at Will Call and there it is. It is not inconvenient for me in any way.

Love Rice

Roach: "I feel like in this day and age, every girl should know how to build a flamethrower."

Another reason I like electronic tickets. And why so many venues and events these days have switched to them. No shipping charges. No will calls. No difference local vs. other side of the world. I suspect BM will switch to them before too long, but not this year. Yes, the ticket is a nice souvenir for some, but there are other ways to provide that.

pink wrote:E-tickets would require scanners working at the gate. Since the dust is absolute hell on electronics, I don't see a switch to e-tickets anytime soon.

The DMV actually did quite well using ipads for their new super-speedy processing system this year. You're overestimating how dangerous the dust is to electronics. It's not a picnic, and you are well to have some spares, and sealed items are of course a plus, but "absolute hell" is way overstating it, I can say from many years experience of doing electronics stuff on the playa.

Yeah, same here. But with less vehicles, early entry doesn't raise nearly as much dust. Coming in Friday afternoon was a breeze compared with Sunday afternoon when I've arrived in the past. Computers inside a structure, like they are at will call, are shielded to some extent from the dust. Having a scanner out 24 hours a day for the first few days of entry would kill 'em, unless they work through plastic. In which case, it wouldn't be a problem to have e-tix.

essjay wrote:However, scanning every ticket during general admission would probably slow things down significantly.

Actually, I think it would speed things up significantly. For example, this year there was a top quality ticket forger who printed many tickets, all with the same ticket number. Gate had to examine tickets not just to see if they were fakes, but check if they had particular known numbers. With a decent speed scanner, it's scan, happy beep and on to the next task, be it searching or waving them through.

I live in Canada and had my tickets mailed to me this year with no issues. I'm a little bit concerned this year though since tickets aren't bein mailed out until summer. I might choose will call but can someone tell me how it works? I know there's a separate line-up to get your will call tickets but then do you havge to go to the back of the giant line-up or do will-callers get their own line? I was trying to watch how it worked and where will call went but it was really hard to tell from where I was in line.

Katiebaby25 wrote:I live in Canada and had my tickets mailed to me this year with no issues. I'm a little bit concerned this year though since tickets aren't bein mailed out until summer. I might choose will call but can someone tell me how it works? I know there's a separate line-up to get your will call tickets but then do you havge to go to the back of the giant line-up or do will-callers get their own line? I was trying to watch how it worked and where will call went but it was really hard to tell from where I was in line.

It's not that big of a deal and much improved over previous years. I had a rider with a will call ticket and we were directed into the parking lot once up at the front and popped in and popped out in about 15 minutes. Not really that big of a deal.

Barcode scanners actually work pretty well, even in dusty conditions. They're remarkably good at picking up the barcodes even on weirdly shaped objects with colors that aren't plain black and white. The barcodes could even be printed with special fluorescing inks if security were such an issue.

The real problem is having those scanners networked so that they can verify authenticity/duplicates quickly, and ensure that the system won't be down, or break, or something else happen. I'm not sure if the benefits would be justify the costs and testing needed.

"The essence of tyranny is not iron law. It is capricious law." -- Christopher Hitchens